Razorbacks Internet Chatter: September 9, 2013 - Alex Collins is Freshman of the Week, Statistics, Justin Moore Concert

Believe the hype, people. Alex Collins is the real deal. And after his freshman record-setting performance against Samford, Collins has been named the 247Sports National Freshman of the Week, and SEC freshman of the week. Arkansas needed every bit of his 172 rushing yards. Again, ease up with comparing J-Will/Collins to DMAC/Felix Jones. It's insanely too early for that.

Well, the Samford game on Saturday was a little bit closer than we all would have liked. Arkansas eeked out a 31-21 win, but did not impress except for in the run game. Athlon came out with their SEC week 2 power rankings, and Arkansas is right where you'd expect them to be after Saturday's struggle. And FWIW, we're still ahead of Missouri, so yeah.

The attendance for the Samford game was bad. Just bad. 47,348 was all that entered War Memorial. I had a feeling attendance would be bad when Lot 5 (on the east side of the stadium) was basically empty 3 hours before kickoff. Attendance was the worst it's been in 11 years. Not exactly making a case to keep games in central Arkansas, folks. Also, check out the LSU attendance in 1992. Try to imagine WMS with only 22k (less than half full). (Editor's note: the early/mid-90s were a dark, dark time in Razorback football. Except 1995. That was cool.)

So far, although competition hasn't been the greatest, Arkansas ranks in the top five in the SEC in major offensive and defensive categories. Arkansas is second in the conference in rushing defense, fifth in pass defense (!) and first in rushing yards per game. Arkansas also leads the SEC in rush attempts per game at 836.

In non-football news, don't forget about Arkansas native Justin Moore's free concert in Lot 56 on September 13 at 7 pm. Yes, football news is a bit slow today other than the Alex Collins news. Still, go out and see Justin Moore to kick off your weekend. Fun fact: Justin Moore was an all-conference baseball player in high school at Poyen High School (who was in my high school's conference in baseball and basketball). You learn something new every day.